“Explores the world: blogs on celebrity encounters, extraordinary-ordinary people, local politics, tangles with kid(s), and navigates the white water of raising saida kid while editing a fiction manuscript.

Don’t be fooled by the smiley face

There is no family vacation without savoring a bakery, dining in a recommended restaurant, driving around at least once…the wrong direction (we call that DAD!), and visiting a bookstore.

I didn’t buy a book. I had two dozen in the trunk, but that did not stop me from shopping. I can’t leave people alone. I had to bother the bookstore owner a few of times, do you have A Certain Slant of Light? Do you have a copy of (fill in the blank). Oh, hey, did you know the designer who did this Columbine bookcover (Henry Sene Yee) talks about creating it on his blog? Would you like me to email that to you?

After all that needless chatter I was, indeed, obligated to spend money in her store. A gift to me. I settled on a notebook. Every writer needs one.

In fact, mini-notebooks were required in Novel Writing Boot Camp by teacher Carolyn Rose. In fact, Elizabeth Lyons, in her book Manuscript Makeover, advises we have mere seconds to capture a thought, an idea, a firefly. They all admonish: keep something handy to write on. I have nothing handy, its all in the bottom of one of my many bags.

I bought the notebook.

I, however, was not the first person to write in my notebook.

It was my sister.

She wrote, “Hello. No pictures on Face book ☺.”

I think the smiley face negates any orders she may have been doling out.